


Secret Admirer

by Anonymous



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anal Sex, Auror Harry Potter, Auror! Harry, Blow Jobs, Case Fic, Clothed Sex, Down and Out Draco Malfoy, Frottage, Gift Fic, H/D Cluefest 2021, M/M, Marijuana, Non-graphic depictions of child neglect, Recreational Drug Use, The Knight Bus (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:40:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29406372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Fresh out of training, Harry discovers that life as an Auror isn’t at all what he’d imagined - it’s much better actually, and there are stickers. As he settles into the team, a case lands quite literally on his doorstep... who keeps sending the Knight Bus to his house?
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Luna Lovegood/Ginny Weasley
Comments: 9
Kudos: 81
Collections: H/D Cluefest 2021





	Secret Admirer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wanderingeyre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderingeyre/gifts).



> This is for wanderingeyre. Thank you for this lovely prompt! I wasn't sure about participating in Cluefest, as I don't think of myself as a mystery writer, but I saw your prompt and this fic practically wrote itself. Thank you so much for the inspiration! And thank you to my beta, adyam! I so appreciate all your help and feedback.
> 
> Author's note: Drarry is a fantasy relationship to escape into; this fic became a fantasy adulthood to escape into. This is the adulthood and work environment I wished for when I was 19. Harry's job as an Auror is also partly inspired by a post on Lettered's tumblr - we don't really know what Aurors do, or what exactly their job entails. In this fic, the normal tropes about Aurors (paperwork, partners, assignments) get thrown out the window.
> 
> Cluefest Prompt: The Knight Bus stops in front of Grimmauld Place, waits ten minutes, then leaves. After seven days, Harry wants to know what or who the bus is waiting for and he goes out and asks the driver. Harry is astonished when the driver tells him he has been waiting for Harry and that his fare has been paid. Harry gets on the bus. Where does the Knight Bus take Harry, and who paid the fare?

“Ten galleons.”

“Still bloody charging me full price?” said Ron, digging in his pocket. “I’m your brother, you couldn’t, I don’t know, give me a discount?”

“Discounts are for employees only,” said George. He took Ron’s money and handed him the chocolates. “Don’t let her eat - “

“I know, I know, only one at a time,” said Ron, bashfully. 

“Too right,” George said. “Two’s the maximum for the evening. You don’t want Hermione to land in St. Mungo’s on Valentine’s Day with a swollen -”

“Could we not talk about Ron’s sex life?” asked Ginny. “I only have to listen to it happening every other Saturday. I don’t want any more details than I already have,”

Ron turned red, though whether it was from embarrassment or anger, Harry couldn’t tell. “I have sex more than twice a month, thanks,” he muttered in Ginny’s direction. 

“Of course you do, Ronald,” said Ginny, condescendingly. “A box for me as well.”

George looked like he was going to be sick. “I don’t think you should be eating these, Ginny.”

“Don’t be a prude,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Anyway, they’re not for me. They’re for Luna.”

“You’re dating Luna?” Ron said incredulously. “I thought you liked -”

“Dating’s a loose term for it,” said Ginny. “We like to think of it as meeting each other’s needs.”

Harry suppressed a giggle at the identical looks of dismay on Ron and George’s faces. 

“Right,” George said, recovering himself. “Ten galleons.”

Ginny feigned offence. “But I’m sleeping in the smallest bedroom,” said Ginny. “I let you pick before me when we moved in. Doesn’t that entitle me to the employee discount?”

“No, that entitles your exclusion from washing up duty, which I believe I have picked up for you a number of times,” said George. “The only people with employee discounts here are me, Harry, and -”

“So you’re telling me that Draco Malfoy is paying a lower price for your products than your own flesh and blood,” said Ron, mock outraged. 

“He would if he wasn’t so bloody tight-fisted,” said George, in a low voice. “Never spends a knut that one. Harry -” he said, brightly, “You’re graduating soon, you’ll be needing a way to celebrate. Let me show you our new line of liquors. You can pick out whichever you’d like.” 

“Brilliant,” said Harry, and went with him into the back room. 

\-----------------------------

Friday was the graduation ceremony. Harry and the other Auror trainees turned up in their bright red robes, all newly issued, the buttons shining and the boots sparkling. Harry liked the way they hugged his calves. He’d never worn form-fitting clothes before, properly tailored and shined up, and he felt very smart stepping out of Grimmauld Place that afternoon on his way to the Ministry. 

Ron and Hermione were in the audience, along with all the Weasleys, and Luna, sitting next to Ginny. Neville was sitting a row behind him, here to graduate himself. He and Harry had gone through training together, these past two years. No one was more surprised as Neville when he was accepted to the Auror program. He hadn’t taken N.E.W.T. level transfiguration or Potions. Evidently, leading an anti-Voldemort resistance from the Room of Requirement and chopping off Nagini’s head were qualifications heretofore unlisted in the Auror Academy application. 

Harry felt both triumphant and apprehensive as Kingsley pinned the Auror badge to the right-hand side of his chest. The six months of physical training, duelling instruction, exercises in concealment and healing, and wandless magic had been gruelling, but at no time had their instructors trained them for what Harry assumed would be the day-to-day operations of their job. What kind of paperwork was waiting for him at the end of this? Would he need to know how to file expense reports, or bill his time? Who would be his partner; what kind of cases would he be assigned? Nothing of any substance had been explained. 

Harry, Hermione, Luna and the Weasleys all went out to dinner later with Neville and his Gran. They ate at a very relaxed Greek restaurant that took about five years to serve any food. Harry didn’t mind; it meant he got to spend a long evening with friends. Arthur got more tippled than Harry had ever seen him on the Ouzo Harry had brought from George’s shop. Harry couldn’t drink it; it tasted far too much like licorice, his least favorite flavor, but he’d bought it because every time someone took a drink, they recited a line from Greek myth, and the drunker they were, the dirtier the myth. By the end of the evening, Arthur was involuntarily impersonating a randy swan, and the whole table was in stitches. 

When the older people had left, the young people staggered back to Grimmauld Place, several of them nearly legless. George and Ginny were leaning on each other, and about halfway to Islington, Luna produced a joint, which was passed around between her, Harry, and Neville. Marijuana wasn’t illegal in the wizarding world, mostly because wizards rarely had any idea what it was, and regarded it as a muggle curiosity, much like the London Underground and the Easter Bunny. 

Harry fell asleep in his bed that night pleased with himself and the world, if a bit nervous about the following week. 

His first Auror meeting was scheduled for 8am Monday morning. He hadn’t the foggiest idea what would happen. 

\----------------------------

“Happy Valentine’s Day, and welcome to our four newest Aurors,” said a cheerful Head Auror Robards on Monday. “We’re all happy to have you.”

“Here here,” intoned an elderly wizard, sitting slumped over the great circular oak table they were seated around. His beard was longer than Dumbledore’s had been, but much less well-tended. In front of him was a stack of folders and papers, terribly organized and spilling every which way, and in front of the papers was a little placard with what Harry presumed was his name.  _ Frompton _ , it read, in glittery gold script, though Harry had to strain to make it out, since the letters were nearly covered by what looked to be several dozen stickers crowding all over the placard. 

“Thrilled to have you on board,” said a middle-aged witch sitting to his and Neville’s right. She was exceedingly well-built, and friendly looking. Harry thought she looked like the kind of person who might help to rescue a cat from a tree, possibly by uprooting the tree. Her name, according to her placard (also covered in far too many stickers), was Yates, and the file folder on the table before her was thick but immaculately organized. 

“Well,” said Robards, sinking into his chair and gazing around at the dozen or so Aurors seated at the table. He twiddled his thumbs. “What are we doing today?”

“I believe first order of business is usually the stickers,” said an older Auror Harry recognized from training. Savage. 

“Oh yes, the stickers!” Robards’ face lit up with what Harry thought was entirely too much glee for the head of a ministry department to evince when discussing stickers. 

“Savage, a sticker for solving the vampire case. Didn’t see that one coming.”

“Neither did I,” said Savage, extending a hand for a sticker. The hand was heavily bandaged, and so was Savage’s neck. Savage saw him looking, and winked cheekily before very carefully adorning his name plate with his new sticker. 

“Proudfoot, I believe you’re owed two, is that correct?”

“Three,” said Proudfoot. “One for arresting the troll smuggler, one for the case with the Belgian ministry, and one for the -”

“Right! Right you are, one for stopping the office candy cane thief. Well done.” Robards handed Proudfoot three stickers. “Chang, you should give him one of yours,” he said crossly, though Harry could tell he wasn’t really angry.

Cho Chang spread her hands in mock indignation. “I have low blood sugar. I needed those candy canes. They were essential to my health.”

“I don’t like candy canes,” mumbled Frompton, uselessly. 

“In any case,” said Robards. “Second order of business.” He looked blankly around the room.

Everyone stared back at him. Harry was feeling more and more appalled the longer the meeting went on. He had expected the meeting to be a great deal more serious. 

“Well?” prompted Robards. “What have you been working on?”

Cho Chang cleared her throat. “Yates and I are leading the Greyback investigation,” she said, seriously. Harry’s head snapped up at that.  _ Greyback _ . He was still at large. He glanced round the table at the other Aurors, and they were just as intent on Cho and Yates as Harry was. Yates pulled a stack of papers from her excellently managed file and levitated them to each member of the team. “We’ve made progress. He’s hiding in Bavaria. We need more informants to chase him.” 

Harry read the paper Yates had distributed as Cho told them about their plans and strategies. It was a map, detailing Greyback’s movements, and a list of informants and witnesses. On the back was a list of names, with ages next to them.  _ Victims _ , Harry realized, and felt a bit sick, though less sick than he would have been reading about this sort of thing in the paper. He was here now, in the Auror department, and he could help, if Robards would assign him to the case. 

Proudfoot and Savage were both working with Yates and Chang on the Greyback case. They were managing Aurors who had gone undercover and so were not present at the meeting, but they gave a condensed report of their field experiences. Savage also reported that she had been looking into a suspected clan of druids in Northern Ireland who were unlawfully accessing the magic in standing stones. 

“In any event, even if it’s not druids, five circles have been accessed since the last equinox, draining the magic from the ley lines and disrupting the harvests in the surrounding area. The muggles have been reporting widespread crop failures. Whoever is accessing those stones is harvesting the power for something. It can’t be good.” 

“Right,” said Robards. “Who else?” 

An Auror with a placard that read “Smith” spoke up. “I’ve been investigating the disappearance of the Loch Ness monster.” 

Harry’s felt his eyes nearly bug out of his head. He stifled an impulse to laugh, but Smith floated over a document from his file, and there was a photograph of the monster, long neck and everything, splashing in a lake, and Harry suddenly didn’t know what to think. 

“It’s been confirmed missing for a month. It’s possible it has been abducted.” 

“Sorry,” Harry said. “What if - what if it’s died? Isn’t it… old?”

At this, the entire table full of Aurors broke out laughing. 

Robards was nearly doubled over. “You don’t think the Loch Ness Monster is real, do you?”

“Well, no, but -” Harry gestured to the photograph. 

“It’s for tourists,” said Smith, wiping his eyes. “It’s an enchanted statue. A witch made it in the early twentieth century and left it there, in the lake. She had a pub next door, wanted to drum up business. Wizards take vacations to Scotland, they take pictures next to it.”

“When I was five, my Gran took me to meet it,” said Neville, fondly. “Got a ride on it and everything.”   


“Yes, in the old days it was much more friendly,” said Frompton. “In my boyhood, back in the forties, it even appeared to Muggles on occasion. Not anymore. It’s become so grumpy, in it’s old age.”

“Yes, well, I’m following up on every possible lead. I’ll give a full report next month.”

“Right. Potter, Longbottom,” said Robards, turning to face them. “What are your plans?”

“I’m sorry?” said Neville, sounding just as confused as Harry felt. “What d’you mean?”

“What are you going to investigate?” Robards asked him, carefully sounding out the words in his question. “Any ideas?”

“Er -” said Harry. “I’m sorry, but I thought we would be… assigned to a case?”

Once again, the other Aurors broke out into uproarious laughter. 

“Assigned… assigned to a - to a case,” said Cho Chang, holding her sides. “Like a muggle detective show!”

“Did you think we’d all have badges and firearms, as well?” asked Smith, fairly howling, though his face was kind. “And file paperwork? And… and get war… “ he could hardly continue. “Warrants?”

Harry didn’t understand what they all thought was funny, and said so. 

“This is the Auror department,” said Robards, smiling. “We’ve hired you because you’ve got integrity and talent, because you’re good at tracking dark wizards and witches, because you want to stop them. We’re not going to stand in your way with bloody paperwork. You tell the table what you want to do, and if other Aurors want to help, they do.”

“So what’s your job, then?” Neville asked. “If we don’t file paperwork or need warrants? What is it you do?”

“Psychological validation,” said Robards. He gestured to the sticker sheets in front of him. 

“And he’s good in a fight,” said Yates. “Gets his hands dirty.”

“Thank you, Yates,” said Robards, looking pleased. “So. What would you like to do, gentleman? What are your first acts as Aurors?”

Harry looked at him. He felt excited instead of apprehensive, for the first time since graduating from the Auror training program. This wasn’t what he had expected at all. In fact, it  _ greatly  _ exceeded his expectations. 

“I want to find Fenrir Greyback,” he said.

“Me too,” Neville said. 

Yates nodded at them. “You can work with us,” she said, her face suddenly serious, her whole expression a grim line. “We have one rule.”

“What’s that?” Harry asked. 

“Whoever finds him first gets to kill him.”

\------------------------

It took five more months, but Neville got to kill him, in the end. 

The Aurors on the case had been burned so many times - Greyback escaping arrest only to attack more children later- that they had taken the decision to kill Greyback on sight. Which is what they did, or what Neville did, when they finally cornered him in a cave in the Black Forest. 

Afterwards, Harry was exhausted, as he had been after the final battle at Hogwarts. He’d been running on fumes for months, sleeping in the woods and stealing food from muggle grocery stores, impersonating a vagrant, with no contact with the rest of the Auror team except for a charmed galleon he kept in his pocket. 

It was the most fun he’d ever had. But he needed a break. 

He asked Robards for a week off after he, Neville, and the other Aurors on the case gave their report to the Wizengamot. Robards had fire called him, and when Harry asked Robards if he had to fill out a form formally requesting time off, Robards’ head laughed at him from his fireplace. 

“Take a week off, then take a sabbatical,” Robards told him. “Figure out what your next case will be. As long as you need.” 

Harry had never imagined a working life quite like the one he had, or a boss like Robards. From watching Uncle Vernon, he had always assumed bosses were terrible, they gave you a hard time for taking leave, they underpaid you, they told you what to do and when to do it. But Robards trusted him, wanted him on his team, and wanted him working on something he cared about. It was the polar opposite of what Harry thought his adult life would be, and it was wonderful, like Hagrid telling him he was a wizard had been. 

The first thing Harry did on his holiday was go to the joke shop for some booze. 

It was Friday morning. The shop wasn’t open yet, and George wasn’t there. He hadn’t been in his bedroom at Grimmauld Pace when Harry had left that morning, so Harry assumed he was probably asleep still at Angelina’s. 

Still, Harry had a key to the shop, as part owner, so he let himself in. 

As soon as he opened the door, there was the loud crash of glass breaking. 

“Fuck!” someone shouted. “Who are -”

The person in the shop caught sight of Harry, and abruptly shut his mouth. 

It was Draco. Malfoy. George’s shopkeep. He’d been stocking the shelves when Harry had opened the door and startled him into dropping a case of glass jars. 

“I’m sorry,” said Harry, moving towards the glass with his wand. “I’ll fix them.”

“Thank you,” said Malfoy, cautiously. He held out the tray he’d been carrying, and Harry levitated the repaired jars back onto it. 

Harry didn’t quite know what to say. He’d seen Malfoy in here before, a number of times, but they’d never spoken, though it seemed to him that Malfoy was watching him when his back was turned. He could see it out of the corner of his eye, or if he turned around quickly. 

“I’ve stopped by to pick up some alcohol,” said Harry, not knowing what else to say. Malfoy was just standing there, holding the tray, and looking at him, but also trying awkwardly not to look at him. It was the most uncomfortable Harry had felt in a social situation since fourth year, but then, this wasn’t really one, since he and Malfoy didn’t really hang out. 

The silence stretched on between them. “I’m taking a leave from work,” Harry continued, picking his way through shelves to the back room, where George kept all the stuff for adults. “I need something to drink.” 

“Are you entertaining?” asked Draco, quietly. He was always quiet, these days. He’d stopped sneering at everything sixth year, and then at the trials, he’d gone all… quiet. It had been so unnerving to see him that way, back then, and it was unnerving now. 

“Er - like a party? No, not exactly,” Harry said, picking up bottles from the shelves and examining their labels. “I mean, there are five of us living at Grimmauld place, six if you count Luna. So I guess there will be people around to share with. Why?”

“You’re taking a holiday from work, and your plans are to sit in your house with a few of your mates, and drink.” 

“What else would I do?” Harry asked. For some reason, this question made Draco look very, very sad, but Harry didn’t understand why. “What would you do, if you had a holiday from work?”

“I don’t have holidays from work. I’m poor,” Draco deadpanned. 

“Sorry I asked,” said Harry, feeling peevish. He shrank the bottle he had in his hand and put it in his pocket, and then left, without saying goodbye. 

\---------------------------

The weekend passed in a haze of good whiskey, pot, and something Ginny told him was all the rage in America. It was like a melted cheese sauce with avocado and hot sauce. She ate it by dipping corn crisps into it and coating them in the cheese. 

“It’s like cheese soup,” said Harry, stoned practically out of his mind, and drunk to boot. “Why don’t we have this in England? The kebab shops should sell it.”

“It’s called Queso, Harry,” said Ginny, only slightly less stoned than him. “And I don’t think kebab shops would sell it, it’s from -”

“Oooh, Ginny, we should buy a kebab and use it to eat the cheese. We could like, dip the kebab  _ in  _ the cheese, and eat it that way. I wager it would taste... Let’s go. Let’s do it right now.”

They did, and it wasn’t quite what Harry had hoped, but it was still delicious. By the end of the weekend, what with the kebabs, and the cheese soup, and all the cake he ate, just because he was on holiday, and grown-up, and could eat cake whenever he chose, he must have gained five pounds. 

Monday morning rolled around, and Harry was on a holiday, approved by his boss and everything, but he decided to go into the Monday morning meeting anyway. He’d just pop in, hear what everyone was up to, and leave again. 

And Robards owed him a sticker. 

Harry was enormously pleased by his sticker. Robards had selected ones with little wolves on them especially for the Aurors returning from the Greyback case. It was Harry’s first case, so he only had one sticker on his placard, but he felt a swell of pride as he stuck it on there.  _ The first of many _ , he thought to himself. 

Never mind he hadn’t the faintest idea what his next case would be. 

As it happened, the other Aurors were at equally loose ends. A few joined the standing stone investigation, but it sounded as if Savage had tracked it to a group of witches in Ulster, and was just in the process of arresting and charging them. The Loch Ness Monster, happily, had been found. She had moved into a lake adjacent to Loch Ness, and was resisting all attempts to take her back to her old stomping grounds.

“Perhaps she’s too grumpy to contend with tourists,” Smith concluded. “In any case, the Auror department lacks the authority to compel a historic statue to change her preferred residence, unless she interferes with the Statute of Secrecy again.”

Only Frompton had an active case open. He was so old that Harry was astonished he was still investigating anything, but as he spoke, it became apparent that he’d been working on the same case for the past five years, and it didn’t sound at all challenging: he was investigating mimes. 

“Mimes?” asked Neville, interrupting. “Like the street performers?”

“I’ve always suspected they were up to something,” said Frompton, sleepily, “and I nearly have the evidence to prove it.” Harry expected the other Aurors to roll their eyes, or laugh a bit behind their hands, but they nodded sagely. 

“So,” said Robards. “We’ll meet back in a week’s time. No hurry picking new cases,” said Robards. “If there’s no dark wizards to chase, then we’ve done our jobs.”

Harry and Neville went to the pub straight afterwards for lunch. Neville ordered fish and chips, and Harry bought a plate of scotch eggs for them to share. 

“What are you doing for the rest of the day?” Harry asked Neville. 

“Joke shop,” said Neville, swallowing an entire egg at once. “Smith told me we need some more of the Peruvian powder for the Auror storeroom. Want to come along?”

“Sure,” said Harry, thinking maybe today he would take a holiday into one of George’s daydreams. Hermione loved them; her favorite was the one with the well-built blond man advertised on the cover, dressed like a pirate. Harry imagined there were worse ways to spend an afternoon. 

\------------------------

The next morning, Harry woke up much less hungover than he had the previous day. He ate breakfast and put on a set of joggers, planning to go for a run down to the river, when he noticed the Knight Bus waiting on the corner just across from Grimmauld Place. 

Harry went for his jog, and when he came back, it was gone. For the rest of the day, he got stoned with Ginny and George. They helped George stock the back room of the joke shop, and then met Angelina for ice cream. Harry felt like he was thirteen again: no obligations, friends in every direction, and a massive appetite. He ate five whole scoops. 

Wednesday, the bus was back. Weird. Harry wondered who it was waiting for. 

Harry spent Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in a stupor. He hardly left his house. There must have been twenty five people coming through, all at odd hours. There was a festival of some kind in the park, and Neville had invited witches and wizards from all over Britain to stay in their ballroom in between shows. On Saturday, Harry finally decided to head out with them, see what all the fuss was about, and as he stepped off the front step, the Knight Bus appeared again. There was still no one obviously waiting for it, which Harry found very strange. Perhaps this was where it parked when it had nothing to do? But the driver looked alert behind the wheel, and there were the shapes of people behind some of the windows. 

Sunday morning, head pounding from the pills Luna had given him, groin throbbing pleasantly from the pretty university boy Hannah Abbott had brought along from her History of Magic courses at Cambridge, Harry walked out the front door to get a croissant at the coffee shop, and the Knight Bus was parked across the street. 

_ Fuck it _ , Harry thought. He had nothing better to do, and he was in a calm, post-coital afterglow. He got on the bus. 

“Hello,” said the witch behind the driver’s seat. Harry had been half expecting Stan Shunpike, but the driver was the furthest thing from Stan he could imagine. She was portly, and so small that she had to sit on several large books to see over the wheel. Her hair was grey, sleek, and plaited into two braids on either side of her head. “Harry Potter?”

“Yes,” he said. 

“I’ve been expecting you,” she told him. “Right. Your fare’s been paid.”

“My fare’s been paid? Who paid my fare?”

“Couldn’t say,” the witch said. “Whoever it is paid by owl. Are you ready?”

“Er - where are we going?”

The witch squinted at a note she had Spell-o-taped to the dashboard. “Newquay.” 

“The beach?” Harry said hopefully. 

“Looks that way,” she said. “If you’d like to pay an additional fare, you can bring someone from the house with you. Got a good number of friends, from the looks of it.”

Harry felt vaguely unsettled that she had been watching people coming and going from Grimmauld Place, but then, she had been more or less staking out his house for six days. 

“Right, I’ll be - just a minute,” Harry said. He practically skipped back up the stairs to his bedroom, where he found the pretty boy still asleep on his bed.

“Michael,” Harry said, jostling him. “If you don’t have to finish that research paper today, would you like to come to the beach with me?”

Michael opened his eyes groggily. “I thought you were getting me a croissant?”

“We can get a croissant,” said Harry, tossing Michael his clothes. “Can you transfigure your trousers into a swimming costume?”

Half an hour later, Michael was dozing against him on a sofa on the bus, and Harry was tucking into his second pastry. The Knight Bus had made a jump to Cornwall, and soon parked at a lay-by close to a beach. 

It was July, and there were a fair amount of holiday-makers lying behind windbreaks or on sunbeds. Harry pulled Michael along with him into the ocean. It was cold, it was always cold in England, but the sun was warm. Harry went hopping through tide pools, threw stones at the sea gulls, ate a kebab, and then another. Michael had brought along some pot, and they hid in a cave to smoke it, and then snogged for a while. The wind picked up and ruffled Michael’s sandy blond hair. Harry dug his fingers into it. 

Monday morning, Harry woke up happier than ever. The previous week had been fun, but it had left him feeling drained and tired, all that drinking and partying, shouting himself hoarse at concerts and lugging great big boxes around George’s shop. Sunday had been lovely. He’d never been to a beach before - Vernon and Petunia had only ever taken Dudley, and left him with Mrs. Figg, and somehow as an adult he’d mostly hung around London and never bothered to take himself. 

He walked out the door to go to the Monday meeting, still unsure of what his next case would be, but no longer cared as much as he had done last week… and was confronted by the Knight Bus.

“Er,” he said to the driver, the same witch as yesterday. “You’re not here for me again, are you?”

“I am,” she said, matter-of-factly. “I understand you’ve got a job to be getting to?”

“I do,” Harry said.

“Climb in, your fare’s been paid,” she said. “I’m to take you to the Ministry, with a stop along the way.”

“What kind of stop?” asked Harry, ascending the stairs.

It turned out that the stop was a hamburger restaurant. Whoever had paid for the Knight Bus had also bought him a hamburger meal, with a milkshake. The manager came out to meet him as he stood in line waiting to make an order, and gave it to him. Harry opened his meal back on the Knight Bus, and was delighted to find that it included a stuffed toy platypus. 

At the meeting, when Robards asked the Aurors what investigations they were making, Harry had something to report. 

“Someone keeps paying for the Knight Bus to take me places, and I want to find out who it is,” he told the table of Aurors. 

“Excellent case,” said Robards. “I’ll get a file started for you.”

Harry took the file back to his desk, and found a skeleton outline for solving his case. There was a page for likely suspects, with blanks spots Harry could insert pictures into. Harry didn’t have any ideas on that yet, but he did fill in the map with the locations the bus had taken him to. He was writing the relevant information in the diary portion of the file when Neville came in and asked him if he wanted to get lunch. 

George and Ron met them at the Leaky, where Harry ate so much coronation chicken he thought he might be sick. It had a good curry sauce, just the right amount of kick to it, so he kept at it until George asked him if he would like to come by the shop and settle up for the quarter. Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes had been doing so well that George was now paying dividends to Harry as the principal investor. Harry had insisted such a thing wasn’t necessary, but George was adamant that he collect them, and that’s how Harry found himself face-to-face with a weeping Draco Malfoy. 

He’d gone into the back room while George counted the money out of the safe in the basement, looking for a place to sit down, and Malfoy had been standing with his back to the door with his head in his hands, crying softly. 

“Fuck, sorry,” said Harry, feeling out of place. He was terrible with crying people. If it had been one of his friends, he would have…. He had no idea what he would do, because he was awful at comforting people. He’d caught Ginny crying at Grimmauld Place once, after she’d had a fight with Percy over Easter brunch, and that had been alright, because he was already in the habit of hugging her, but if it had been Ron or Hermione or George doing the crying he would have been totally lost, as he didn’t hug them regularly at all, and that was the only tool in his box, as far as helping criers went. 

Malfoy turned around sharply and looked at him. His eyes were wet, and very grey. Cho had cried in front of him once, and he’d kissed her. It was a useless memory for Harry to recall, at this moment specifically. He couldn’t kiss Malfoy. Definitely the wrong move. 

“Could you give me just a moment?” said Malfoy. His voice would have sounded icy if it hadn’t caught. 

“Yeah,” said Harry, backing out the way he’d come in. “I’ll just - I’ll go see about George, see if he needs any help.” 

Malfoy watched him leave. Harry practically ran down the stairs to the basement. 

“Alright, Harry?” said George, catching sight of him as he took the steps two at a time. 

“I… Malfoy was crying in your back room,” said Harry, a bit breathless. “Do you think - is he alright?”

“Probably not,” said George, a bit of a frown appearing between his eyebrows as he counted out gold coins into stacks on the table in front of him. “He’s having a rough go of it. You heard about Lucius and Narcissa?"

Harry nodded. 

“After the divorce was finalized, Narcissa fucked off to the continent with one of the older Nott brothers - older relative to the brothers, not to her. He’s fifteen years younger than her. She keeps trying to get Draco to come with her, but he won’t hear it. Doesn’t like Nott, from what I gather, and doesn’t want to leave Lucius with no one to visit him in Azkaban. I hear them shouting on the floo in the apartment sometimes when I pop into the shop at night.”

“The apartment?” asked Harry. 

“I’m letting him stay in the garrett upstairs,” said George. “I was using it for storage, but I told him to clear it out and use it when he started working here. I think he might have been sleeping rough before I offered it to him. Here’s your cut,” said George, pushing the galleons into a sack he’d placed at the edge of the table. 

“Thanks,” Harry said, taking the sack of gold. He had no idea what he was going to spend it on, but then he remembered the Knight Bus, and thought perhaps he could spend it wherever it took him tomorrow. If it turned up, that is. 

\---------------------------

It did turn up. Harry got on, and just as she had before, the portly little driver had instructions to take him to a predetermined location. It was an amusement park on the outskirts of London. She also gave him twenty quid, with instructions to purchase as much candy floss as he’d like, and specifically to be sure to win a large stuffed animal at one of the carnival games. 

The next morning, Harry woke up virtually expecting the Knight Bus to arrive, and to his delight, it took him to a video game arcade. Harry had never played video games before. Dudley had never let him, and then he’d gone to Hogwarts and he’d never managed to get his hands on one. 

Then, for a week straight, Harry woke up and the Knight Bus had gone. Harry felt a little disappointed, but reasoned whoever had been sending it had grown tired of whatever game they’d been playing, or found something better to spend their money on. 

Without warning, after seven days, it returned. 

This time, it took him to Savile Row. When the bus stopped, the driver gave him an envelope, and inside the envelope was muggle money, a small hoard of it. Harry’s eyes bugged out of his head. The envelope also had the name of a tailor. 

The tailor he met was expecting him. Harry was slightly worried that he was about to be fitted for a bespoke suit, which he wouldn’t like at all as he’d have no place to wear it, but to his immense relief (and also surprise) there was a pair of denim trousers waiting for him, already purchased at a different shop, and left for him at the tailor’s. They were in his size. 

Harry was then fitted for a blazer. He was not allowed to pick the fabric, or indeed the color. A dark blue wool, which would have been drab but for the hint of sapphire that seemed to make it sparkle, had already been selected. He was allowed to pick from a limited palette of button down shirts, but he didn’t trust himself whatsoever, and got all five shirts in ivory.

As his measurements were being taken, he asked the tailor if he might know who had purchased the clothes for him, but the tailor told him that whomever had done it had called into their customer service line, which had been outsourced, and placed the order via phone. 

Harry took the shirts and the trousers back to the Knight Bus. He was happy, but unsettled. Vernon and Petunia had always given him Dudley’s clothes. They never fit. Harry was now the owner of a perfectly fit blazer. Whoever had bought the Knight Bus three mornings in a row must have a deep affection for him - but that condition applied to nearly everyone in Wizarding Britain, save a few Death Eaters that were imprisoned or on probation. Until today, Harry thought it could have been  _ anyone _ sending the Knight Bus - one of his fans, or someone who wanted to thank him. 

As the Bus drove past Savile Row back to Islington, Harry mulled over in his mind what had just transpired. It seemed increasingly likely that whoever was sending him the Knight Bus might be someone that knew him very well - well enough to know that he’d never had proper clothes, that he’d never been taken to fast food restaurants as a child, that he’d never had a proper holiday. 

“After we drop my clothes off in Islington, could you take me to the Ministry?” Harry asked the driver. 

“Anything for Harry Potter,” she said.

\-----------------------

When they arrived, Harry nearly ran in the direction of the Auror office and opened his case file the second he got to his desk. He was so excited he upended the rubbish bin sitting next to his chair. 

The commotion attracted Cho Chang. “Found a lead on your case?” she asked. 

“Not exactly,” said Harry, flipping to the page labelled “suspects”. It had a number of empty boxes. “Is there a way to put pictures on the suspect list? Do we have to go to the filing department?”

Cho looked at him steadily. “You’re a wizard,” she said. “Take a memory of whoever you’re thinking of out of your head and put it on the page.” 

Harry was confused. “So, if I want to put Ron Weasley… I just…”

“Are you thinking about Ron Weasley now?”

“Yes.”

Cho touched her wand to Harry’s forehead. A thin, silvery wisp of memory stuck to the end of it, which she touched to the parchment sitting on Harry’s desk. Ron Weasley’s face appeared in the first box on the parchment. It smiled and waved at him. 

“We don’t have a filing department,” said Cho. “The files manage themselves. The Auror department has had the cabinets trained for over a century.” 

“Oh,” said Harry. He touched the tip of his wand to his head and placed it on the parchment. Hermione’s face was looking at him, and then George’s, and then Luna’s. 

Cho watched him. “You think someone close to you is sending you the Knight Bus?”

“Yes.”

“Why? It could be anyone - you’re Harry Potter. Loads of people might want to spoil you a bit. And after you and Neville caught Greyback, it’s hardly surprising that you might be the recipient of a little superfluous good will from the public.”

Harry used his wand to place Ginny’s face on the parchment. “Whoever is sending me the Knight Bus knows about my childhood.” 

“Your childhood?” Cho sat down. There had been some press after the war about what his upbringing had been like - nothing specific - but since then, everyone outside a small circle of his friends had treated him with extra caution if the subject was ever raised, as if they might break him. But Cho was looking at him steadily, and Harry had a flash of understanding that her childhood, after all, had been likely nearly as traumatic as his - losing a boyfriend at the age of fifteen to murder wasn’t exactly a picnic, and then that mess with Umbridge, and Marietta Edgecombe; the regret she must have felt afterwards, when Umbridge sided with the Death Eaters, just as she was entering the Auror academy....

“I was - I didn’t have a happy childhood.” Harry took a deep breath. It was harder sober, to tell people. Ron and Hermione had known because they had seen the presents the Dursley’s sent him, and Ron and Fred and George had rescued him from his room, so he’d never exactly come out and told them about it - they had just known - but he’d told George and Luna quite a bit, even more than he’d told Ron and Hermione, because they got high together regularly. Harry had made a joke once, when he’d had a stoned craving for a hamburger, how he hadn’t felt this hungry since he’d been living in the cupboard. 

Luna had told him she didn’t understand the joke, and somehow he’d wound up with his head in her lap telling her the whole story, crying, and George had sat next to him and patted his leg. It wasn’t the most pleasant evening he’d ever spent, but after that it had been easier to talk about it, at least with the people he trusted, but then only when they were stoned or drunk and the talk turned serious. He tried not to think too hard about it, when he was sober. 

But he was sober now. He took a deep, steadying breath. “My relatives didn’t - they didn’t feed me enough. They kept me in a cupboard under the stairs. I had to wear all my cousin’s old clothes, and they never fit right because he was so massively obese, and I was underfed. They went on holiday without me, and to restaurants. I don’t think I had fun once, not one time, the whole decade I lived with them.” Harry wasn’t meeting Cho’s eyes. He was watching his friends on the parchment, who smiled up at him gently, as if they were listening. Cho put a hand on his arm, and the faces on the parchment all went a bit blurry. “Whoever is sending me the Knight Bus, they’re sending me to places I didn’t get to go in my childhood. So it’s someone who - “

“Someone who loves you,” said Cho. “Someone who knows what you didn’t have, and wants you to have it.”

“Yeah,” Harry said, wiping at his eyes. 

“Do you think it’s one of the people here?” she asked, gesturing to the pictures. 

Harry frowned at them. It was possible, but - “No,” he said. “I don’t. If they wanted to give me something, they’d just -”

“Do it.”

“Right. So then -”

“It must have been someone they told,” Cho said. “Or who overheard you.”

“Overheard…” Harry said. “Cho. I know who it is. But I can’t imagine where he would have gotten the money.”

“Who?”

“Kreacher.”

\-------------------------

It wasn’t Kreacher. 

He and Cho had gone straight to Grimmauld Place to interview him. He made Cho swear never to tell Hermione what he was about to say, and then he’d reminded Kreacher that good elves didn’t lie to their masters, or else…

But it wasn’t Kreacher. 

“It’s a good start, though,” said Cho, after they’d taken the floo back to the ministry. Harry had added Kreacher’s face to the parchment, but now he drew an X on it with a red quill. “Are you sure you can rule out everyone else on here without asking?”

“I suppose not,” said Harry. “Want to come with me and ask them?” 

“Only if you’re buying lunch,” Cho said. 

Harry had more fun than he expected. They drank a couple pints before heading out. Cho transfigured the bar napkins into badges that looked like Muggle Police identification. “It’s more official this way,” said Cho. “We’re Aurors. We need people to take us seriously.” A bit of froth from her pint was stuck to the top of her lip. Harry didn’t tell her about it. 

“Sir, this is official Auror business,” Cho told Ron, before stealing half the toastie he’d been eating. “I’m afraid we’ll have to take this into Evidence.” 

“Oi! Harry, I told you I don’t have anything to do with it, why does she need my sandwich?”

“I’m afraid that’s classified,” Harry said, stealing a chip for good measure.

“While we’re here,” said Cho, around a mouthful of toastie, “have you told anyone about Harry’s childhood? Anyone who might know personal information about him?”

“Just my mum and dad,” said Ron. “But they do loads of nice things for Harry already, they wouldn’t send him the Knight Bus in secret.”

“What about your brothers?” she asked. “Bill? Or Charlie?”

Harry nodded. “Yeah, they might know. Did you tell them, Ron?”

“No, but maybe mum might’ve,” said Ron. Harry put their faces on the parchment. They’d follow up later. 

“What about your other brother? Percy?”

Harry and Ron both looked at each other, then burst into laughter. 

“Can you imagine?” said Ron. “Percy, doing something nice? Without telling anyone?”

Ginny, Hermione and Luna didn’t reckon they knew who was sending the Knight Bus. Ginny and Luna had talked with each other about Harry from time to time, but hadn’t spoken to anyone else about him.

Hermione hadn’t spoken to anyone but Ron about Harry’s childhood, but she was appalled that Harry had blindly walked onto the Knight Bus when it had been paid for by a perfect stranger. 

“It could have taken you anywhere, Harry - didn’t you learn anything about security at the Auror academy? What did they teach you at that place?”

“I’m afraid that’s classified,” said Cho, with great sincerity. 

Next afternoon, Harry followed up with Molly, Arthur, Bill, and Charlie (via floo to a hearth in Romania). None of them knew a thing about the Knight Bus, and furthermore, Bill and Charlie hadn’t heard the details of Harry’s childhood. Harry marked off their faces from the parchment, feeling dispirited. 

The last on the list was George, and it was looking more and more likely that he had sent the bus, now that Harry thought about it. George loved a good prank, even though most of his pranks were a bit more mean-spirited than this. 

They met him in the shop before it opened, about an hour before Cho and Harry were due at the Monday morning meeting. 

“I didn’t send the Knight Bus,” said George. He looked down at the floor. “I… sorry, Harry.” He rubbed the back of his head guiltily. “I told Angelina what you told me, about the Dursleys.”

“That’s alright,” said Harry, meaning it. 

“I should have asked,” said George. “You took me into your confidence. It’s not an excuse, but we were drunk here one night. We stayed up late talking, and it just… it came up. She was so angry about it, yelling and everything.” 

“Do you think Angelina sent the Knight Bus then?” Cho asked. 

Harry shrugged and said “maybe” at the same time George said “no”. 

“We have a joint Gringotts account,” George told them. “I keep a strict account of the money, so I know how much I’m spending on the shop, and how much I’m taking in. I have to, for the taxes at year end, otherwise it’s a right mess. I might not have noticed bus fare, but I would have noticed five hundred galleons for a jacket.”

Just then, there was a thump from above their heads, and what sounded like someone getting out of bed. 

Cho looked at George questioningly. 

“That’s Malfoy,” George explained.

“Malfoy?” she asked. 

“Yeah,” said George. “He lives in the garrett.” 

“Harry,” Cho said, urgently. “You don’t think…”

\-----------------

Harry sat stone-faced in the morning meeting, hoping Robards would forget that he had an active case open. 

Naturally, Cho made sure that wouldn’t happen. “We’ve cracked Harry’s case!” she announced gleefully, reaching for a sticker before Robards could offer it to her. 

“We haven’t,” Harry hissed, smacking her hand away from the sticker sheet. 

“We certainly have,” she said, chortling. She turned back to the other aurors. “Draco Malfoy has spent every spare penny he’s made working at the Weasley joke shop on Harry Potter.”

“It doesn’t even make sense,” said Harry, and even as he said it, he knew he was wrong. Beside him, Neville’s jaw had practically fallen onto the floor. 

“Oh, but it does,” said Cho. “One, you’ve always been obsessed with each other.” 

“We haven’t,” Harry said, feeling a bit desperate. 

“You have,” Neville said, clapping him on the shoulder. 

“Two,” she said, ticking off her fingers, “He was up in that garrett when George told Angelina, so he’s heard all about how horrible your relatives were to you.” 

“But he’s -”

“Poor? George isn’t charging him rent,” Cho said, holding up a third finger. “He must have saved it all up for you.” 

“He didn’t save it for me,” said Harry, intending to sound decisive but landing on panicked. “And even if that’s all true, we still don’t have a motive. There’s no possible motive for him to have done this, so there’s no possible way it was him.”

Cho set her hands on the table, looking stumped. The rest of the Aurors were quiet. 

Frompton cleared his throat. “If I may -” he said. 

“By all means,” said Robards, looking supremely amused. 

“I am no longer a young man,” Frompton said ponderously, “but I believe that this young Mr. Malfoy may be - how to put it…”

Harry felt a black hole open up where his stomach used to be. 

“He may have,” Frompton continued, “an infatuation.”

Everyone was silent for a moment, during which Cho’s face stretched into a grin as broad as a Chesire cat’s. 

“That’s definitely it, mate,” Neville said. Harry felt a black hatred for him, and Cho, and doddering old Frompton, who was watching him with a twinkle in his eye, though not because he really hated the idea of Draco being infatuated with him. It was something else, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on, but whatever it was, his face was getting hotter and hotter, and he had a strong desire to run swiftly out of the room. 

Robards extended a sticker in Cho’s direction. “I believe you may deserve all the credit, Chang,” he said. “It appears your partner remains in denial.” 

Harry pushed his chair away from the table. “I am not. I am not in denial.” 

Neville grabbed after him. “Harry, it’s alright if you’re… none of us would judge you if you - “

“But I don’t.” Harry walked towards the door. “He didn’t, he doesn’t, and I don’t. And I’m going to go talk to him right now, and prove it.”

“God’s speed, young man,” said Frompton. As Harry was slamming the door behind him, he heard him sigh, and say, “Ah, young love. I remember - “

\--------------------

Harry stood outside the joke shop, trying to catch his breath. 

It wasn’t open yet. Malfoy would be stocking the shelves, or behind the counter. George might be in there. Or he might not. Harry could pop his head in and find out. 

Or he could go back to Grimmauld Place, smoke a fat bowl, and not think about the past two hours. 

Just as Harry was deciding which snack to pick up on the way back to his safe, comfortable couch, Malfoy’s head popped out the front door of the shop. 

“Potter,” he said, the ghost of a sneer on his face. “Can I help you?”

“Is George in?” Harry asked. 

Malfoy’s mouth did something funny, but then Malfoy wiped it clean, and his face looked like a blank mask. “No.”

“Perfect,” said Harry, thinking he could get this embarrassing conversation out of the way, with George being none the wiser, in about five minutes. He pushed past Malfoy into the shop. Malfoy would tell him he hadn’t ordered the Knight Bus, and then he would go back to his couch and eat a bowl of cheese soup with the lovely corn crisps - 

“Have you been sending the Knight Bus to my house?” Harry could already taste the queso, the kind with the cilantro in it…

Malfoy’s face was turning red.  _ Oh fuck _ . He turned in the direction of the cash register, and fumbled with something on the counter, avoiding Harry’s gaze.  _ Oh fuck _ , Harry thought, his Auror training inconveniently flooding his consciousness,  _ awkwardness and evasion in response to a direct question are often a sign that the interview subject is guilty of _ -

“Oh fuck,” Harry said aloud. “You have, haven’t you.”

Malfoy seemed to be struggling to put the blank mask back on his face, but he was failing so completely that Harry wanted to laugh, that Harry would have laughed if the situation weren’t so disturbing, if a completely unanticipated and absurd hope weren’t filling his chest.

“Malfoy,” Harry said, intending to press him further, but Malfoy’s shoulder’s hunched, as if he was cringing, and he seemed like he wanted to bolt from Harry like a frightened rabbit. Harry felt his insides turn upside down, and the dark terror he’d felt at the Auror office suddenly inverted. Malfoy was - he was so shy, and Harry wanted to protect him from his own embarrassment. It made his heart swell, this need to protect Malfoy. Days ago, when Harry had found Malfoy crying in the shop, he’d had the same feeling, but now he knew what to do, knew hugging him wouldn’t be out of line, exactly. He’d only need to be careful, how he went about protecting him, making him feel safe. 

“Thank you,” Harry said. “It was… it was great, all of it. I’ve never been to a beach, can you believe that? And the jacket. You shouldn’t have spent all that money on me. You didn’t have to -”

“It’s not what you think,” said Malfoy, still not looking at him, turning the pages of a ledger behind the counter. 

“Okay,” Harry said. He felt at ease now, and he wanted Malfoy to feel easy, too, but Malfoy was still determined not to look at him. Harry grabbed a chocolate bar from the display on the counter and peeled it open. He took a bite.

“I’m not - I didn’t send you the Knight Bus because I - I mean, it’s not like I have a crush on you, so don’t flatter yourself, Potter.” 

Harry broke off a piece of his chocolate bar and offered it to Malfoy, who shook his head. Shrugging, Harry ate it. “Would you like something else to eat?”

Malfoy finally closed the ledger and stared at him. “Pardon?”

“I know this great cheese dish from America. Do you like cheese?”

“Cheese,” Draco said, uncomprehendingly. “Are you asking me - “

“On a date? I think so,” Harry said, shovelling more chocolate in his mouth. 

“Why?”

“Because you’ve been nice to me, and I think you’re cute,” Harry said simply. He offered Draco his arm. “Side along?”

Draco looked at him warily. “You think I’ve been nice.” It wasn’t a question. 

“You  _ have  _ been nice.” 

“I broke your nose, Potter. When we were sixteen.”

“So is that what this was? An apology?”

Draco looked down. “No. It wasn’t an apology.”

“Then it was you being nice.” 

Draco nodded, still looking at the floor. 

“Take my arm, Draco.”

Draco took Harry’s arm. “That’s it,” Harry said. 

Before they disapparated, Harry asked him, “Would you like to smoke some pot before we get the food?” 

\----------------------

Harry owled Robards the next morning, with a letter announcing his intention not to be at the Auror department for two weeks at least, so he could close his current case completely, and Robards owled him back with a recommendation for a nice restaurant. 

Harry pulled on a jumper from his closet before he crawled back into bed. The blankets were warm. Draco was still asleep, or at least pretending to be. Harry curled around him. 

“Hey,” Draco said. His eyes were still closed. 

“Do you want to get breakfast?” Harry asked. “Kreacher could bring us some, or we could go to a breakfast place.”

“Breakfast place,” Draco said. “Only, I need a change of clothes.”

Draco had fallen asleep in his clothes the night before. They had stayed up talking, and then necked a bit, and then concluded it was too weird to have sex yet, since they had spent most of their life at odds with each other, and Draco was very stoned. So they fell asleep cuddling, and it was rather the nicest night’s sleep Harry had enjoyed in quite some time. 

“Mm,” Harry agreed. He nuzzled Draco’s neck a bit with his nose. “Let’s sleep a bit longer.”

Draco leaned into him. He was smaller than Harry, so he fit just right in the cavern Harry’s body was making. Harry pulled the duvet over them both, and then fluffed it out so a bit of cool air settled around their bodies. 

He threw an arm over Draco, and Draco stroked it with his fingers. His nails gave Harry goosebumps. 

They lay still for a quarter of an hour, listening to each other inhale and exhale. Harry liked the way Draco’s back rose and fell against his chest. 

\----------------------------

Breakfast was nice. They went to a muggle place around the corner from Grimmauld Place. Harry asked for a booth, and insisted Draco sit beside him when Draco looked awkward trying to decide where to sit. Harry put his arm around his shoulder and fed him little strips of bacon by hand. 

“Is this weird?” Harry asked. 

“Is it weird that we’re cuddling in public?”

“No, I mean, more generally,” Harry said. “Is it weird that we’re being nice to each other.”

“Yes,” Draco said, accepting a bit of toast Harry was offering him. “Yes, it’s weird.” 

“Well, I like it, even if it is weird” Harry said. He cut up a sausage into bits and ate some. “Nothing about my adulthood has been what I expected.”

“What did you expect?” Draco said, before stealing a bit of sausage for himself. 

Harry chewed his sausage. “I expected it to be hard. Like, my job. I expected to have a boss I didn’t get on with, and to be poor because - well, when I was young, I knew the Dursleys wouldn’t help me, and then when I was at Hogwarts, I half expected to die every year, that I wouldn’t even make it to adulthood, and then after Ginny and I broke up, I thought dating would be awful, especially being me. Being single is so hard for people, and I always expected to have my heart broken or something.” 

“What if I break your heart?” Draco asked him. 

“You won’t,” Harry said. 

They finished their breakfast, and then Harry took Draco to the underground. They took a train to King’s Cross, where Harry bought them two tickets to the seaside, down by Portsmouth. 

“You should let me pay for mine,” Draco said, drawing out a wallet. 

“You’re joking,” Harry said, and swatted his wallet away. 

When they got down to Portsmouth, Harry got tickets to an elevator on a high tower where they could look down and see the Solent. It was a bright day, but a bit chilly - chilly enough that Draco crowded next to Harry, looking for a bit of warmth. 

They sat on a bench and looked over the water. “So,” Harry said, drawing out a joint from his pocket and casting a notice-me-not charm, “exactly how much did you hear about me from George and Angelina?”

Draco’s face turned dark. He scowled as he took the joint Harry offered him. “Enough to know those muggles that raised you ought to be drawn and quartered. I could do it, you know. Malfoys are instructed in all sorts of things that wizards forgot in the Middle Ages.”

Harry felt something bloom in his chest at Draco’s show of loyalty. He went quite weak for loyalty. “When did you become such a Gryffindor?” He meant it as a joke, but his voice cracked. 

“Harry,” Draco said, his breath held to keep in the hit he had just taken. “You deserved a happy childhood.”

“I had one,” Harry said, and meant it. “I had Ron and Hermione, and I had Hogwarts, and quidditch, and Hagrid.”

Draco flinched. “Yes, well, I certainly tried my very best to spoil it for you.”

The ocean roared far below them. Harry ran his hands through Draco’s hair. This high up, close to the sun, it was nearly white. “All you did was make it more interesting.” And he pulled Draco’s head back, his fist in his hair, and kissed him as hard and still as he could. 

Draco was nearly gasping against him like a fish when Harry finally let him up for air. 

“Could we please go back to your house now?” Draco asked, breathlessly. 

“Yeah,” Harry said gruffly. 

It wasn’t the best sex Harry had ever had, but it was the surest. 

Neither of them were trying to impress each other, and that made them go slow. Harry felt like a teenager, kissing Draco for long minutes, getting too excited and having to stop, to put a hand on the crotch of his denims to make his cock go down before he came in his trousers. They were both shirtless, but they were too distracted to get fully naked, with the effect that they wound up slowly grinding against each other through the hard fabric.  _ Dry humping _ , Harry remembered calling it, back in the dorms in Gryffindor, when they were all still figuring things out. 

He had loved the idea, back in school. Something about it was unbearably hot, that he could be so into someone that he would have sex with them without even taking off his clothes, without even  _ wanting  _ to take off his clothes. Many of his early masturbation sessions once he’d graduated and had a room to himself, once he was no longer concerned that his roommates would see a four poster bed rocking back and forth across the dormitory floor, were him thrusting himself into the mattress, into a pillow, and now he did it against Draco. But instead of feverishly rutting into his bedding, he was dragging his cock against his leg, rolling it, testing the muscles on Draco’s thigh for the right angle -  _ there _ \- Harry though feverishly -  _ that’s it, right there _ . 

Draco was saying something similar, keening  _ yes, fuck Potter, yes, just there, with your hip _ , finding purchase around his neck, his hands in his hair. Harry kept a steady rut going, doing everything he could not to come too fast, but Draco was whimpering deliciously every time he stopped, and it was becoming too difficult not to spill inside his pants. 

Harry’s head felt like it was buzzing after fifteen slow minutes of humping Draco like a sixth year. He flipped him over onto his back and held him down, his forearm sharp across Draco’s shoulders, which for a reason which Harry did not investigate entirely made Draco turn beet red and nearly cry with pleasure. Growing tired of the heaviness of his denims, he stripped them off, working his feet free after they caught around his ankles. He didn’t bother taking Draco’s trousers off, but he yanked them down so they were trapped around his upper thighs. Both of them were still in their pants. Harry’s boxer briefs were tight against his body, and his cock strained to get out of the black cotton prison that held it fast against his lower abdomen, but that made the friction even more delicious. 

Harry worked more quickly now. The gentle pleasure pooled low in him. He was stoned from the joint they smoked in the tower; every sensation was blunted, less intense than it otherwise would have been, but at the same time more intense, as if reflected in the mirror of a still lake. His cock ached with the pressure of Draco’s cleft. Harry pushed into it, his cock separated from Draco’s skin by the soft fabrics still clinging to their bodies. He drove into the soft furrow, feeling totally out of his head. 

Draco, for his part, was making circular rutting motions against the bed. His voice was muffled by the pillows, and it seemed like he’d stopped paying attention to Harry, or to what he looked or sounded like. Harry liked the way he looked, the way he sounded. It was so easy to let this person make him feel something. That had always been easy, between them, only the feelings hadn’t been quite so pleasant as they were just now. 

Harry wasn’t far off from coming. It was going to happen any minute, and this time he didn’t want to stop it. He took his arm off Draco shoulders and rested his whole weight on top of him, burying his nose and face in his neck. He bit down, gently, and held Draco with his teeth. 

Draco came first. His arse clenched up around Harry’s cloaked cock, which Harry found so pleasing that he felt himself immediately begin to follow along. It was disappointing, in a way - Harry rather wanted to keep grinding up against him for at least another hour - but then his orgasm began in earnest, and he pushed off Draco’s back and tugged his cock out of his pants. Finally freed, it jumped in Harry’s hand, spurting a gobs of white liquid onto Draco’s back. 

Harry groaned and nursed the last of it out of himself. Draco was panting underneath him, a look of disgusted resignation on his face. 

“What?” Harry asked, when he finally came back to himself. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” said Draco. “Just a bit messy.”

Harry snorted and reached to the bedside table for a few tissues. “I’ll clean you up. Lie still.”

\-----------------------

Harry did eventually go back to work at the Ministry, which meant he couldn’t spend every day lying in bed with Draco, smoking pot and touching his cock. Just most days. 

One of the days when they’d woken up separately, they agreed to meet later at the shop. Draco had to close up, and Harry had his Monday morning meeting, so they hadn’t seen each other the night before. 

A lovely bit of anticipation built in Harry the whole day at the office. When he went home, he planned to pack an overnight bag, then pick up some flowers at the corner shop and head over to Draco’s garrett. They’d taken to spending quite a bit of time in there. It was phenomenally cozy. Draco had rescued some linens and candelabras from the manor before it had been repossessed, so the bedding was decadent silk and the room was lit by gentle flames in cut crystal. When it rained, the sound was absurdly cozy, and the garrett was so small that the tiny fireplace warmed the whole thing, top to bottom. 

It was very nearly Harry’s favorite place in London. 

Sometimes he and Draco stayed up late talking. 

Draco had told him about his mother, and her involvement with Theo’s brother, Alexander. Draco practically spat the name out of his mouth, he was so evidently disgusted with the situation. Narcissa had point blank refused to join Draco in poverty, and so had thrown herself at Theo’s squib older brother, who was under pressure to marry into a wizarding family and so produce a magical heir. 

Harry couldn’t imagine watching his mother sell herself in marriage. He thought Draco was very brave to have stayed behind in London and made his own way after the Malfoys lost all their money, and said so, and that night Draco had fallen asleep with his head buried in Harry’s stomach, the both of them lying on the rug before the fire. 

Sometimes they ordered in food, and ate it together in the attic, smoking pot and sharing cigarettes between them. Harry liked the way they tasted on Draco’s tongue. Sometimes they didn’t have anything to drink or smoke, and Draco read to him from one of the books on his shelves. He’d never noticed in school, that Draco liked to read. Draco told him he had taken great pains to hide it. The Slytherins bullied swots on principle. But he had a collection he had bought from booksellers, one every week since he’d been turned out of the manor, and by now, years later, he had an impressive library.

Harry had never enjoyed reading. He’d never had access to books as a child. Petunia and Vernon hadn’t been the bookish type, and Dudley certainly had been more likely to eat books rather than read them. Harry wondered, when Draco read to him some evenings, if his parents had read him books as a baby. He wondered if his mother’s body felt warm, like Draco’s did, when they curled up and read together. He wondered if his fathers arms felt just as strong as Draco’s, wrapped around him while they turned the pages. He wished he could go back into his childhood and read a book to himself, and tell himself that even if his childhood was half miserable, his adulthood was like a happy dream, with good work to do when he wanted it and a restful, hazy coziness when he didn’t. He wished he could tell the smaller version of himself that he didn’t have parents, but when he grew up, he had friends that loved him good as family, someone lovely to come home to, who tried every day to make up for the things in childhood he didn’t get to have. 

The nights they read together, they didn’t often have sex. Harry much preferred petting Draco’s head those nights, or offering his own head for petting, while they watched the rain or, if they were lucky, flakes of snow, fall past the windows. 

Some nights Draco came over to Grimmauld Place, especially if someone was throwing a party. Last month, George had thrown an absolute rager for all the investors, vendors, and employees of the shop, and of course Draco had been invited, as an employee and also as the date of the largest investor of Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. Grimmauld Place had a ballroom, and George had hired a band, and everyone had dressed like rock stars. Draco had let his hair grow a bit past his ears for the occasion, and was wearing Union Jack lycra pants and  _ lipstick _ , so he looked like a posh version of Mick Jagger. 

The nights they spent at Grimmauld Place, they almost always had sex. After George’s party, Harry’s cock had a bright red ring of lipstick around it. 

This wasn’t one of those kind of nights, though. Nights at the garrett were usually pleasantly quiet. 

And besides, any hopes Harry might have had of getting laid on a Monday after work were laid to rest when he accidentally walked in on Narcissa on the floo, in the middle of a stormy argument with Draco over whether he would be joining her in Europe for the Easter holidays. 

He walked in, flowers in hand, just as Narcissa was saying “and I don’t see what you have to stay in England for, it’s not as if you have anyone there who cares about you,” but her head had turned to the door when it had opened, and Harry felt like a joke from a movie, dressed up in his red Auror uniform and holding a bouquet of roses. 

“Excellent timing,” Draco intoned, his patrician drawl fairly aching with sarcasm. He took the flowers from Harry’s frozen grasp and conjured up a vase to stick them in, all the while pointedly ignoring Narcissa's spluttering face in the fire. “Did you bring any pot?”

They didn’t smoke pot that night, in the end. They had been dating for months, but they somehow hadn’t gotten around to having penetrative sex. Frotting against each other, blow jobs, lazy hand jobs that sometimes resulted in orgasm and sometimes didn’t - these were familiar, they were easy, and they didn’t require so much  _ work _ . Actually having anal sex was a terrible amount of work, and it was messy, and Harry and Draco were lazy and stoned most of the time. Draco worked in a  _ joke shop _ \- he was practically permanently stoned, now that he and George were mates and smoked together. 

They were eating dinner, when the subject of sex came up, in the most roundabout of ways. Draco had made a curry, actually cooked it, but in a cauldron in the basement of the joke shop, as the garrett didn’t have a kitchen. It was awful, but they ate it anyway and filled up on naan. Harry was making fun of him, and they were laughing together, and then Harry said, “you know, it’s alright that I didn’t get this when I was a kid.”

“Get what?”

“Family dinners. Meals with people I cared about.”

“That’s not alright.” Draco’s eyes were glowing from the light of the candelabra beside them. 

“Yes, it is.” Harry munched a bit of celery. “People have terrible adulthoods. They work jobs they hate, they get married to the wrong people, they lie to themselves about what they want. My adulthood is perfect.”

“You spend your evenings doing drugs and eating terrible food with an ex-death eater. Most people wouldn’t consider you an authority on a productive adulthood.”

“It’s what I want, though, isn’t it? And isn’t that what I deserve? To have what I want?”

Draco got terribly quiet, then, and stared at a candle for a very long time. “Is this really what you want?”

Harry gulped down the terrible food he was eating and kissed him. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, this is what I want.”

“Ugh.” Draco pulled away and made a face. “You taste atrocious. I am the world’s worst cook.”

“Don’t care,” said Harry, kissing him again. 

“What -” Draco trailed off as Harry began undressing him, losing focus. “What else do you want?”

“I want -” Harry finally got Draco’s belt undone and threw it hastily to the floor. “I want to have sex with you.”

“Okay,” said Draco. “Do you mean -”

“I want to be inside you.”

“Yes.” Draco kissed him on his forehead. “Yes, let’s do that. That would feel good.”

Harry closed his eyes and leaned his head against Draco’s mouth. “I like feeling good,” he said. 

“You deserve to,” Draco said. Then he lay down on the bed, and Harry felt sublime. 

**Author's Note:**

> This work is part of H/D Cluefest and the creator is currently undercover. You can follow the fest at our [Tumblr](https://hd-cluefest.tumblr.com/). Creators will be unmasked on the 15th April.


End file.
